Sharon Stone tries online dating, discusses the stroke that nearly killed her

Sharon Stone says she has started online dating during lockdown, found it to be a "cool learning experience". Photo / Getty Images

Sharon Stone is a famous movie star, but that doesn't mean she finds dating easy and, like the rest of us, has turned to an app for help.

The actress, 63, turned to dating apps over lockdown and enjoyed being able to connect with guys in a new way and understand more about how they think, although the conversations didn't lead to her finding love.

She said "[Online dating has been] a cool learning experience, during Covid, where you really know you can't get together: it's a freedom.

"There's a special kind of intimacy, a nice way to talk. I learned a little bit more about how men think, and how they really are, and how their intimate selves work."

Asked if the conversations led to any relationships, she simply said: "No".

But the Basic Instinct star hopes she will find love again one day in the future.

Sharon Stone's most iconic role was as femme fatale, Catherine Tramell, in the 1992 film Basic Instinct. Photo/TriStar/Getty Images

She said: "I don't know if I'm a person who's going to get to have a relationship in my life, but I hope that I am."

Sharon, who is twice divorced (she was married to screenwriter Michael Greenburg and then journalist Phil Bronstein) has three adopted sons, 20-year-old Roan – whom she raised with Bronstein – Laird, 15, and 14-year-old Quinn and though she had always planned to take such a path to motherhood, before having her kids she tried to have her own biological children, but tragically had three miscarriages at five and a half months pregnant.

She said: "[The last one was] a multiple pregnancy. They thought I had five multiple pregnancies, and I kept losing them. One after the next after the next, heartbeat would go. And the final baby died, and I could feel it and I knew it."

On her way home from hospital after the final miscarriage, the Ratched star received a life-changing phone call.

She recalled to Times magazine: "I got a call from the adoption attorney that he had a baby that turned out to be my son, Roan. 'There's a baby and he's due in six weeks and do you want him?' "

Sadly, the actress lost prime custody of Roan, to Bronstein when he was 3 after she had a stroke, but she has since reconciled with her eldest child and he lives with her again, though she admitted it's taken a lot of work to rebuild their relationship.

She said: "It's been hard for both of us… We've done a lot of re-parenting exercises, therapy. We've done a lot of the work that we needed to do. I love him so much."

Stone recalls how close to death she was after her stroke in 2001, at the age of 43, in her new tell-all memoir encounter, The Beauty of Living Twice. Stone shares how doctors gave her a 1 per cent chance of survival after the haemorrhage, but she was saved by an arduous and lengthy surgery.